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New UK Foreign Secretary - Philip Hammond

 Global Post Article

Agence France-Presse July 16, 2014 1:01pm

Eurosceptic named new UK foreign minister as EU vote looms

British Prime Minister David Cameron named eurosceptic Philip Hammond as his new foreign secretary on Tuesday in a major cabinet reshuffle ahead of next year's general election.

Former defence secretary Hammond, who replaces William Hague, supports Britain leaving the European Union unless significant powers are returned to London before a referendum promised for 2017.

The prime minister has pledged to hold a referendum on Britain leaving the EU if he is re-elected.
...
It also saw the government turn more eurosceptic as Cameron seeks to face down the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP), which many lawmakers fear could take seats from the Conservatives at the election.
"Belatedly, the prime minister has understood that his too-male, too-southern, too-posh cabinet is a serious political liability," wrote The Times.
...
In his first public comments as foreign secretary, Hammond vowed that his approach to the EU would be one of "enthusiastic engagement with the reform agenda".

"But our position is very clear," he told reporters at the Farnborough airshow south-west of London. "It won't be the politicians in smoke-filled rooms who decide whether the deal is the right one.

"It will be the British people in a referendum who decide whether the deal is the right one."
...
"But the fact that someone who has said that they'd vote to leave (the EU) if substantial powers were not returned to the UK in the renegotiation is now foreign secretary sends a clear message to the rest of the EU."

Hammond has been replaced as defence secretary by Michael Fallon, a veteran loyalist.
...
Hague will remain in parliament until the next election but his resignation as foreign secretary marks the end of the political career of a man Cameron called "one of the leading lights of the Conservative Party for a generation".

A former Tory leader, Hague was a leading voice urging the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before the House of Commons last year voted against conducting missile strikes.

EXTRACTS - FULL Article - Global Post - here.

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HAMMOND

Accountant - [Source - Daily Mail - here]

Oxford educated

• Philosophy
• Politics
• Economics

Connections

director of Speywood Medical Limited in 1981

• Castlemead Ltd
• Castlemead Homes
• CMA Consultants

Business interests in:  house building; property; manufacturing; healthcare; oil & gas.

Consulted in Latin America for WORLD BANK in Washington DC.
Consultant for govt MALAWI 1995-1997.

*appointed to front bench -- as spokesman Health - by William Hague in 1998.

Minister of Defence 2011-2014.

Claim to fame:

Reckons banks are not responsible for the financial crisis:  "they had to lend to someone".

[WIKIPEDIA]

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Daily Mail Article

....

At first sight, his replacement by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is bizarre, when Britain badly needs to build European alliances.

Hammond is an accountant who displays the warmth of an undertaker and less personality than most laptops. [LOL]

On reflection, however, we can see a logic in his appointment.

Hammond is no fool, and a paid-up Eurosceptic. When he tells European governments that if Britain does not secure a renegotiation of its EU membership he, for one, will vote to get out, they will need to believe him.

And if it all goes wrong and the Prime Minister finds it expedient to ditch Hammond downstream, there will be few mourners to make a fuss.

His replacement as Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, seems a good choice. ...

Fallon inherits Armed Forces demoralised by Hammond, who seemed to care only for numbers rather than people. If Fallon, a bright and decent former Business Minister, can restore the confidence of our soldiers, sailors and airmen that they are not mere turkeys in Downing Street’s eyes, being fattened up for redundancy, he will earn his corn.

Of course, it is welcome that Cameron has promoted a string of women to ministerial roles. All that is now needed is that they should prove themselves worthy of them. [LOL]

EXACT ONLY
Source - Daily Mail - here.
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 Daily Mail Article - Quentin Letts

...  richest member of the Cabinet — his fortune, mainly from property development, is sometimes put at £7million but is probably more — yet there is nothing showy about Mr Hammond.

He has a mournful visage, cadaverous limbs, the shoulders of a hungry heron — and the resilience, as yesterday’s reshuffle appointment showed, of a mollusc on a storm-tossed rock.  [LOL]

... young Philip won a scholarship to Oxford University from his state school.

,,, The voice has a faint John Majorish twang and like Major he is proud, particular, not to be underestimated.

He is discreet. Wary. Reliable. These qualities will earn him  trust in diplomatic circles but  the embassy dinner party circuit should not expect an injection  of garrulous wit.

The new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker may not find sober Philip much of a boozing companion.
...
Some say that if the Prime Minister came to grief, a Hammond-Theresa May ticket — the Dull Duo! — may be in the offing.

But which would be the boss? Now he is Foreign Secretary, he is at least on level pegging with Home Secretary May.

Significantly, Mr Hammond  has also spoken, briefly, of his desire to leave the EU. For the man now in charge of our Foreign Office, this is a potentially explosive position, yet somehow nothing with P. Hammond ever explodes. Rhetorically, he is the king of ‘phutt’. [what? LOL]

Yet the Euro News agency yesterday described him as ‘l’eurosceptique Philip Hammond’. In recent years, though, Foreign Secretaries have invariably ‘gone native’. Even William ‘Save the Pound’ Hague lost his zeal there.

History suggests Mr Hammond will go the same way, but if he can bring the same determination to EU renegotiation as he did to defence cuts ... 

EXACT ONLY
Source - Daily Mail - here.

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Source:  The Sun - here.

 COMMENT

Sounds an interesting sort, Hammond.

DM doesn't sound too keen on Hammond.